Toast
by Stalker of Stories
Summary: Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, even if it's just the toast falling butter-side down. A collection of one-shots.
1. Cedric

Warnings: Character death, series spoilers, Murphy's Law, and fallen toast.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Associates, of which I am not one. Toast is a collaborative idea, but an individually written challenge.

Cedric's Toast

Cedric Diggory was a firm disbeliever in the concept known commonly as "fate"... but apparently his toast had other ideas. He frowned at the offending piece of bread as though it had slighted him in some way – which is might have considering it fell butter-side down on his black robes and would leave a pale yellow smear – before his attention was drawn away by well-wishers. He smiled brightly at those who crowded around him and picked up the toast.

Really, if he had taken a useful subject like Divination rather than Ancient Runes or Care of Magical Creatures, he would have realized something was wrong. But, alas, he was completely oblivious to the omen presented by his toast even as he waved his wand and murmured "Evanesco" to vanish the mess. Cedric Diggory had never put much stock in Divination, and therefore wouldn't have cared even if he _had_ known the truth.

If he did, however, it was likely he wouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning.

"Break a leg, Diggory!" A rather snarky Slytherin in Cedric's year called out. Cedric was only offended for a minute or so before Justin Finch-Fletchley, a fourth year in his house, informed him that it was actually a muggle wish for good luck common given to performers since saying "good luck" was bad luck.

The Slytherin, of course, had meant this literally, but Cedric didn't think that way. He was an optimistic sort of person, and one Slytherin wasn't about to change that. Neither was his toast.

Soon after, which was before he could grab a new slice of toast, Cedric was greeting his family, but he couldn't think of much beyond toast and his girlfriend, Cho Chang. Even as he spent the day with his parents (and _not_ taking end-of-the-year exams like his classmates), his thoughts wandered constantly to his toast that morning.

This was probably because he hadn't eaten breakfast.

At the third task, Cedric ran beside Harry Potter, and as they separated he thought once more of his toast. He shook this off and focused on getting to the center of the maze before the other three competitors and earning some glory for Hufflepuff. Unfortunately, things are never as simple as one wishes them to be.

Each challenge Cedric came across – from the Blast Ended Skrewts that Hagrid raised to the Devil's Snare – made him think he'd picked an unlucky path to follow. Especially when Viktor Krum – Viktor Krum of all people! – used the Cruciatus Curse on him.

However, Cedric felt it was all worth it when he caught sight of the Triwizard Cup sitting in the center of the clearing and, with Harry Potter at his side with a broken leg, grasped the crystal handles to seal a Hogwarts victory.

Then the world fell from under his feet, and though he landed without much by way of complications, he was once again reminded of his toast from that morning.

A hoarse whisper of "Kill the spare!", a brilliant green light, and a sort of "whoosh" sound heralded his doom, just as the vicious harbinger of buttered toast had earlier in the day, leaving a butter stain on Cedric's robes to prove its existence.

When Cedric fell, he landed face-up, unlike his toast.

**Author's Note: This was inspired when Corselli dropped her midnight snack - a piece of buttered toast - on the ground. And it happened to land butter side down. I made the comment that became the summary of Toast. Due to the fact that we were exploring plot bunnies (yay bunnies!), we immediately decided that my words would make an interesting summary. So from there we came up with this and other related series of one-shots. **

**Toast is a collaborative project between, currently, Corselli and Stalker of Stories. It is a series of one-shots that follows the bad days and the very bad days of different characters in various fandoms. As you can see, I am writing in the Harry Potter fandom, and Corselli is writing in the Naruto fandom.**

**If you are interested on getting in on this challenge/project with us, please send me or Corselli a PM. Please see the rules/guidelines posted on both of our profile pages.**


	2. Trelawney

Warnings: Character death, series spoilers, Murphy's Law, and fallen toast. Contains Trelawney (she deserves a warning all her own)

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Associates, of which I am not one. Toast is a collaborative idea, but an individually written challenge.

Sibyll's Toast

It was perhaps the greatest working of fate that created the food known as "toast." Bread, of course, was the primary ingredient to toast, followed closely by the great instrument given by the gods themselves, fire, which was what turned bread into toast in the first place. It was the distinction between the soft bread and crisp toast.

And the difference between good toast and bad toast was, of coarse, what one put on it. Many substances were invented for this, such as jam, cinnamon, and marmalade.

However, the spread that was most fortuitous and best tasting, in the mind of Sibyll Trelawney, butter. A simple mixture created from milk that had properties in several different sects of the divining arts, mostly food-related ones, but it was said that rubbing butter into one's scalp would improve the accuracy of phrenological readings. Given this information, Sibyll suspected Severus Snape, who had been a few years behind her at Hogwarts, frequented another Seer, since his hair was always so greasy, since she would have advised him to wash his hair after using the the butter (unlike many in her field of study).

With how well butter and toast went together, Sibyll was certain that there would be no complications with her meal and was content to pick it up off her plate even though she knew her mother's pet cat was making its way toward her.

Before she could take a bite, the cat jumped on the table and dislodged the toast from Sibyll's hand, sending it to the floor without so much as an "oops" (not that Sibyll expected her mother's cat to speak English anytime soon, but she was fairly certain it had recently learned to speak an interesting dialect of Welsh because it kept saying something with double Ls in it that Sibyll couldn't pronounce if her life depended upon it).

With a rather wet sounding "splat", the toast landed face down on the wood floors, leaving little bits of pale yellow spattered around it from the impact.

This was a terrible omen, Sibyll was certain, and she was fairly certain she knew what it was for. It was 7 pm, and Sibyll had been about to eat toast to calm her nerves before a job interview at the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade. She had been hoping to gain the position of Professor of Divination at Hogwarts, but now...

The mess was tidied before the cat could make a mess, and Sibyll collected herself before apparating to Hogsmeade and checking to see Professor Dumbledore was waiting for her.

When she left the interview, Sibyll was confused, but pleased. She had the job, and the toast omen was moot.

She didn't know that, during that interview, she had doomed an as-of-yet unborn child to a life of misery and a fate that he did not want and would never see as any sort of blessing.

What she did know was that the Hog's Head served toast at all hours.

**Author's Note: ... Well, the genre IS comedy...****^_^" I've never written Trelawney before. This was fun! More people have taken up the Toast challenge, links on my profile. Corselli has set up a forum for it, as well as a C2. Go check it out!**


	3. Draco

Warnings: Character death, series spoilers, Murphy's Law, and fallen toast.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Associates, of which I am not one. Toast is a collaborative idea, but an individually written challenge.

Draco's Toast

At the age of eleven, Draco Malfoy was a highly refined and polite child, depending upon the company he was keeping at that moment in time. At home he had learned from his father that Malfoys were the top of the food chain, but that if enough ants banded together they could take down a lion. He then changed that metaphor, because lions were stupid and just lazed around in the sun all day, making the lionesses get them food (1), though it was the lion metaphor that stuck in Draco's head anyway.

So, really, he didn't think about snakes being taken down because aunts could take down lions, but snakes were different. He was going to be a Slytherin, so he could annoy as many ants as he wanted and in the end those ants could only catch some stupid yellow cats while _he_ would be plenty safe.

"Remember Draco," said Lucius Malfoy over a three course breakfast on September first, "Harry Potter is starting school with you this year. Offer him an alliance; if he refuses, let him know wrath, but not yours." Draco didn't quite understand this, but he nodded.

At the time, Draco had been taking a bite out of a half-eaten piece of toast that he had been eating in small, refined bites, but not so small as to just be a nibble. The movement of his head knocked the bread onto his lap, face up. Disgruntled at getting crumbs on his brand new Hogwarts robes – satin instead of linen or cotton like everyone else's robes, because he was a Malfoy and Malfoys had only the best – he stood from the table, and the toast fell onto the floor, butter side down.

If he had simply picked the toast up out of his lap and placed it aside or eaten it like any _normal_ person would have done, Draco's fortune would have changed that day, though he didn't know it. He would have been to the station a whole three minutes earlier, in time to escort Harry Potter to the train instead of those bloody _Weasels_, and made friends with the boy.

But alas, he allowed his toast to tumble to the floor, called Dobby to clean it up, changed into fresh robes, had _another_ elf clean the robes he had been wearing, and did not arrive at King's Cross until Harry Potter was getting help from the Weasley Twins to take his trunk to an empty compartment.

By the time he found the aforementioned compartment, Harry was thick as thieves with another Weasley, who ended up putting Draco in a bad light to the Boy-Who-Lived.

This moment, and that toast, heralded seven years of bad relations and a bad reputation for one Draco Malfoy.

**Author's Note: Sorry this one took so long! The original plan was for Corselli and I to update at the same time, but her computer died so I was going to wait... and then nothing. Well, I'm tired of waiting and I just finished a chapter for something else, so I figured I'd type this up, do some Nan Gatsu? if I have time, and generally putz around 'cause I haven't had much free time yet this year -_-" (compared to my usual, that is)**

(1) "Get in the kitchen and make me a gazelle-sammich, woman!" growled the lion XD lol. I'm a girl, so I can find that image amusing.


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